Wednesday, August 25, 2010

12 Skills in a Year - June (PLARN!)

First, say it with me: plarn. Yes, plarn. Plarn is SUCH an awesome word. Even more awesome, it's super easy to "make"! If you aren't familiar with plarn, it's basically just long strips of plastic that you can use just like yarn or string. Plastic + Yarn = Plarn.

For a while now I've been considering reusable shopping bags. We come home from the grocery store with ridiculous amounts of plastic bags, and even though I usually reuse them, I always feel bad about the sheer amount that I have in my trash can after a trip to the store when my 'plastic bag containers' are already full. So I was actually thinking about other ways to use those bags when I stumbled upon plarn on the internet.

My first thought was "what in the world would someone do with something like that?", but then I searched further and found lots of fascinating, practical, and interesting things that people were making with plarn. I found a great tutorial on making it here:

If you know how to knit/crochet already, then make some plarn (it's pretty much free!) and give it a go. It's just about as easy to use as a regular yarn. I have started to make a reusable shopping bag from my ball of plarn (ironic, huh?). I'll post a follow-up with a picture as soon as I get it done. Other project ideas that I LOVE are coasters, rugs, and bowls (my next plarn project). But seriously, anything you could knit or crochet, you could make with plastic yarn ... though I'm not sure I'd suggest a Plarn Afghan or anything.